Stinking Rich Read online

  “Hola! Another round of tequila! Dobles para los musicos!” shouted Arnoldo, slapping congratulations on his brother’s back. “You choose, hermano. Dentro o fuera!”

  With Lester in the ground, and Shooter the villain dog stone dead and buried under a pile of rocks after eating Lester’s strychnine-laced left foot, Danny felt entitled to feel relief. Instead, Skeritt’s visit had left him dead tired and angry.

  “I’m looking pretty good, here,” he said out loud to Iggy, rolling one last joint before leaving the farmhouse for the night. Iggy stared off into space, resolutely uncommunicative or sound asleep—Danny couldn’t tell the difference. “I got two more months of unemployment, a cool grand a week cash, and all the dope I can smoke. I’m due ten thou bonus from the first harvest any day now and this new crop will be good for ten thousand more in three months’ time. Skeritt is a worrywart is all.”

  Sure, and you know he won’t tell your mom and burst her bubble, now she thinks you’re driving a forklift and earning an honest living.

  “Leave my mom outta this, you prehistoric rat. I’m going to do her proud. Gonna make sure she’s never going to have to worry again about havin’ enough money to keep the house or for food or for medicine or nothing.”

  And she won’t need to wonder where you are anymore. You’ll be rotting in a jail cell.

  “Not a chance, banana breath. I buried the body just like you said and the longer it stays that way, the less chance there is they’ll ever tie it to me. I took back my carton of smokes and everything. Anyway, I’m outta here. Gonna sleep at home tonight. Make breakfast for Mom in the morning.” As he shifted his weight out of the lumpy chair, Danny felt a nip on the inside of his elbow. He flicked his hand at it, but the creature bit even harder. “Goddamn ants!”

  He stumbled into the hall and across to the bathroom where he kept the ant poison. Ants and mice were a constant in the farmhouse, especially in the iguana’s room. He had mousetraps set pretty much everywhere. Iggy had quickly learned to avoid them. A part of Danny’s daily routine—on the days he remembered—was patrolling the house, refilling traps with peanut butter, and emptying his dead prey into a plastic bag. He figured he had dropped no fewer than a hundred fifty mice onto the compost heap behind the barn.

  Before learning that Iggy preferred bananas, Danny had hoped the iguana would hunt the mice, like a cat. Instead, from what he could tell, the lizard viewed the mice as furry accomplices in some kind of wildlife bid to drive the resident human batty. Between the mice, their turds, and the ants—turds with legs, as far as Danny was concerned—the farmhouse was a creeping zoo.

  In the bathroom, Danny opened the closet door and reached to the top shelf to grab the ant poison. He froze. Wrapped around the Ant-B-Gon bottle was a patchy brown tail that looked eerily like Iggy dressed up for a party. Slowly, Danny pulled his hand away and stared at the snake. It was brown with grey blocks, or grey with brown blocks. The thing had to be four feet long and was more than inch in diameter in the middle. Its tiny head was coiled back and it held Danny’s eyes in its own; suddenly, it struck out and barely missed Danny’s hand. At the same instant, a mouse trap snapped shut on the snake’s tail. With a flurry of snake skin, the Massasauga Rattler did its best to shake the trap free. Danny slammed the door and jammed a towel under it.

  He collapsed in his chair back in the front room.

  “Sonofabitch,” he fumed. “I might as well be living in the bush with Skeritt for all the damn creatures in this place!” And he rolled up one massive fatty to calm his nerves.

  Nine

  Roaring through the night on his Harley, Perko felt his guts ready to explode. He shouldn’t have had the third serving of refried black beans, but the gooey cheese topping had been too much to resist. The last mile to where he kept his three-wheeler hidden in the forest, the gravel road was rutted like corrugated cardboard. Despite slowing down, he felt like he was tied to an off-level washing machine in the spin cycle. Before ditching the bike for the ATV, he bent double at the side of the road to get more blood into his head.

  A few minutes later, bouncing through the forest, he finally gave in to intestinal revolt: it was time to do what bears do in the woods. He stopped, found a fallen tree limb to squat over, and fought to undo his belt buckle. Then he remembered his leather leggings. His stomach did somersaults as he struggled with the extra straps. In the pitch dark, it felt as though the chaps’ belt was somehow hooked through the loops on his jeans, and the more he tried to pull it loose, the tighter the noose around his belly became. Finally, he belched loudly and simultaneously farted. His stomach pain vanished and he felt light as a balloon. He lit a cigarette and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He figured he could last until the farmhouse where he’d be able to see what was going on around his waist. Not to mention he’d rather use a real toilet.

  Clambering back onto the three-wheeled ATV, he rode the rest of the way to the farm as fast as he could, gulping cold autumn air in an effort to clear his head and calm his stomach.

  When he emerged from the trees on the ATV, the first thing he saw was a rust bucket Sunfire parked beside the old pickup. For a moment, he thought maybe he’d spent longer than he thought sweating over his pants in the middle of the forest. Maybe Bernard and the Nicaraguan had beat him to the farm. But wasn’t Bernard driving a cherry red Miata with the roof down? His lousy punk pot farmer must have ignored the note telling him to clear out. Silhouetted against a light in a second floor window, Perko saw the idiot’s lizard, sitting stock still, staring down at him.

  Leaving the key in the ignition of the three-wheeler, he stomped across the yard toward the house, not sure what he was going to do to the disobedient punk but certain it was going to hurt. At the open barn door, he smelled smoke—dark acrid smoke, like something manmade was burning: the stupid farmer was doing a barrel burn tonight of all nights. Turning on his heel to head into the barn, he heard a car drive up the gravel road and slow down at the gate. Perko froze, his gut clenched. Bernard had arrived with Enrico-or-whatever-the-fuck. That meant the Skeletons would be there in a minute or two.

  His mind bounced among the moron in the farmhouse, the toilet that awaited him, the smoke coming from his barn, and the arrival of the money at the front gate. The money won out when Bernard honked the horn and Perko heard the Nicaraguan swear at him in Spanish. Looking up at the window, Perko saw the lizard still sitting there. Maybe the punk had taken off without his car. If he had, someone must have picked him up—also against the rules. Perko would make him pay either way.

  Bernard honked again, longer this time, and then began to swear: “Tabarnak! Who you punch da head, you grease monkey. Owww! Perko, open the gate, hurry you.”

  “You’ve got a fucking key, Bernard,” Perko hissed, turning his back on the barn and striding over.

  “I think the key it is Frederick he take it from you at the restaurant.” He honked one more time and Perko noticed a light turn on in a yard a quarter mile down the road.

  “Lay off the fucking horn, shit-for-brains,” Perko shouted. Fishing his own key from his pocket, he unlocked the gate and swung it open. He heel-kicked Bernard’s driver’s side headlight. It smashed with a puff of smoke. The stench of burning wire filled his already-singed nostrils and he felt adrenaline rush from his thighs through his chest, neck, and head until it felt like his ears were on fire.

  He rounded the car and pulled open Bernard’s door with his left hand while he grabbed the man’s hair with his right, pulled him out of his seat, and threw him screaming to the ground. With Bernard’s foot off the brake, the car rolled forward slowly. Enrique reached over and grabbed the steering wheel, but before he could make his way across to take full control, the car had lumbered through the gate, scraping its right side along the steel post that held the gate’s hinges. The gate itself clanged back against the car and Bernard’s squeals turned to a whimper and a sob.

  “Aw tabarnak, why you do dat? I just ask you open the gate.”


  With a swift kick to the man’s thigh, Perko started to walk back toward the farmhouse, his knees wobbling. At that moment, he heard the roar of the twin cube vans. The sweat running down his back turned ice cold, and he felt his gut start to roil all over again. He waved the vans into the yard.

  “Bernard! Get out of the way, you stupid wimp. Want me to pull what’s left of your hair off a your scalp?”

  Perko walked down the driveway to where Enrique had managed to stop the car near the barn. When he got there, Perko leaned himself against the warm fender, trying to gain control of his tequila-soaked brain. He needed a toilet bad and couldn’t see how he could last another ten minutes. He wasn’t about to go into the house to face the farmer now that the deal was going down. If they came face-to-face, he’d have no choice but to kill the shithead—not part of the plan for his big night.

  The vans pulled to a halt and Skeletons Number One and Two piled out along with Frederick and Arnoldo. They joined Perko and the others beside the car.

  “Frederick,” Perko said, his voice a dry croak, “you take Bernard inside with you. I’m staying out here on watch.” He paused to wipe sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. He pointed a finger at the Nasty. “You pull this off right, I’ll talk to Hawk. You’ll be a made guy.” He grimaced and clutched his stomach with both hands. “Either one of you screws this deal...” His voice trailed off. He bent double and made a bow-legged dash around the car toward the trees.

  The last thing he heard was Enrique saying, “Holy mother of Dios, what ees that smell?”

  And Arnoldo’s answer: “That, hermano, would be Mount Santa Helena. She is erupting all over again.”

  Terry had misjudged how excited the cop would be when he told him about the grow op. Somehow, he’d imagined Officer Ainsley would lose interest after driving up and down a few dozen back roads. Instead, the cop kept asking him to repeat the vague description he’d assembled from scraps of conversation with Danny. At one point, when they stopped at the side of the road so Terry could take a leak, he’d suggested they call it a day. He could just walk the rest of the way home. Maybe they could go looking again tomorrow or something. After that, the cop got a little meaner, and he made a radio call with the Plexiglas pulled tight so Terry couldn’t hear.

  Twenty minutes later, they pulled into a farm that Terry was sure couldn’t be right. Instead of a darkened yard, there were two white rental cube vans with lights on and engines running. He and Officer Ainsley watched two men walk out of the barn, each carrying what looked like small hay bales on their shoulders. They carried them to the back of one of the vans. The men spotted the cruiser in the yard and shouted at someone out of sight inside the barn. The next thing Terry knew, the cruiser was filled with the sound of a siren and the yard was bathed in swirling blue and red light. The vans sped past the cruiser as the cop radioed for assistance. He jumped out of the car and chased two men who were running after the vans.

  That’s when Terry noticed the two other cars in the farmyard: a sporty red convertible and Danny’s Bondo-special. His heart skipped a beat. Squealing on the grow op had seemed like a decent way out since Danny was supposed to be at his mother’s place, anyways. Cop gets a big score, Terry gets off on stealing a dead man’s car, and Danny could always find another job. Riding in the back of the cruiser, Terry had even mused about the likelihood of earning a medal—something about community service or something. He’d like that.

  It didn’t look like things were turning out quite the way he’d imagined.

  Two men were pushed into the back seat alongside Terry, arguing in Spanish. They reeked of smoke—some of it good. He grinned at them sheepishly and said, “Hey, you guys friends of Danny?”

  Two more men ran from the barn and wrestled each other. They were bathed in flickering light. It was too far to see for sure and the night was inky black with no moon, but it looked like smoke was pouring out the barn roof.

  Officer Ainsley fired his pistol into the air and chased the men down the driveway. At the sound of the gun, Terry’s throat filled with bile and there was a warm sensation between his thighs. One of the two men near the barn fell to his knees and surrendered. The cop pushed him, whimpering, back to the cruiser. The second man ran off into the bush.

  Bright orange fingers licked up the barn walls, then disappeared, only to reappear a few feet away, rippling up and down the hundred-year-old structure.

  When the fourth man was jammed into the back seat of the cop car, the two Latinos complained loudly, each struggling to retain his view of the spectacle outside the cruiser. The smaller one ended up on top of Terry. Terry closed his eyes and counted to twenty, praying he’d be anywhere else in the world when he reopened them. He peeked. He wasn’t. He closed his eyes and prayed some more. At least the guy on his lap didn’t appear to notice Terry had pissed himself.

  Officer Ainsley pulled the handheld for his radio out the car window. Leaning on the door, he said, “10-35. 10-35. What the hell is taking you guys so long?”

  “What’s the matter, Ainsley? What’s the rush?”

  “Something was going down when I got here. I’ve got three bad guys, at least three more have escaped. Two driving, one on foot. We’ve got a burning barn to boot. There goes our freaking evidence.”

  “Roger. What happened? I thought you said this was supposed to be some loner tending a pot garden in the country.”

  “Roger that. Something was going down, like I said. Looked like a delivery. Put out an alert for two white cube vans, no markings. Headed south toward 41. They cleared the area as I arrived. Wait, shit! There goes another rat!”

  Terry listened to what sounded like a motorcycle being started. He opened his eyes and strained to see into the yard. Then the officer fired his gun again and Terry screwed his eyes shut tighter than ever.

  “What’s going on?” the radio crackled. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, just a warning shot. Lotta good it did. Someone else just got out of here on an ATV. Headed into the bush, north or maybe west.”

  “Hold on, Ainsley. You’ll have back-up any minute now.”

  In a few minutes, more cop cars started showing up along with a fire truck and, eventually, an ambulance. The yard was lit up like a carnival. Police swarmed all over the house and firemen pulled hoses toward the barn. Flashlights scanned the yard and the edge of the brush.

  Marveling at the scene, Terry gave up on prayer and joined his seatmates in their back row view of the festivities. Decidedly, the firemen were the coolest part.

  Passed out in his chair, the fatty extinguished and still propped between his forefingers, Danny woke from stupor. Something was poking him in the face. The iguana gripped a banana in its teeth, trying to shove it into Danny’s mouth.

  Time to get up, Sleeping Beauty. Things are going down that you don’t wanna miss.

  Disoriented, Danny lurched to the window in time to see a police cruiser pull into the yard. It sat silent for a moment or two and then lit up like a Christmas tree. Its siren began to wail full force. Seconds later, two cube vans roared from behind the house, drove past the cruiser, and sped southward along the dirt road. One of the doors on the second van hung open and a bale of pot bounced out onto the gravel. Two men ran after the trucks, one of them tackled by the police officer who leapt out of the cruiser, gun drawn. The second man immediately threw his hands in the air and lay face down on the ground.

  Danny rushed to the side window and saw two more men gesticulating wildly. One of them repeatedly bashed the other over the head with a large leather satchel. Finally, the other guy grabbed hold of the bag and it became a tug of war, which the second guy lost when he was kicked in the crotch. He sank to his knees and the first man turned toward the forest. He ran straight into a parked three-wheeler and flipped over the big front wheel. The satchel’s handle snagged on the ATV’s steering column and the man stood up and yanked on it. Danny watched as the man looked up the driveway toward where the cop was and saw his eyes widen in fe
ar. A shot rang out and the man ran into the bush.

  The police officer sprinted into view and stopped at the second man who was writhing in pain in the fetal position, clutching his balls with both hands. The officer put a knee on his neck and twisted one arm behind his back; he grabbed a handful of hair, pulled him to his feet, and frog-marched him to the cruiser.

  Moving back to the front window, Danny watched the officer stuff the man into what appeared to be a rather full back seat. He literally pushed him in with his foot. Then he leaned into the front seat and pulled out his radio transmitter. Danny decided this was as good a time as any to leave. He scrambled down the stairs and out through the kitchen. The barn door hung open to reveal a crimson and gold inferno. He staggered as close as the flames would allow, slack-jawed at the white heat consuming the wood, plastic, and plants. A beam crashed to the floor and he was slammed backward by a blast of hot air and sparks.

  With the cop parked by the gate, leaving by car wasn’t an option. He stumbled across to the three-wheeler and couldn’t believe his luck when he found the keys hanging in the ignition. He jumped on the machine, cranked it, and drove away to the sound of gunfire. The satchel flapped in the wind and banged against his right knee.

  Tears streamed down Perko’s face. He choked back the sobs, but nothing could be done about the water pooling in his eyes. He couldn’t see much of anything from where he kneeled in the brambles, convinced Hell could be no worse than this. His hands and face were scratched and bleeding from the blackberry bush he had thrown himself into when he could no longer clench his cheeks. His pants were bathed in jalapeno fire. Hotter still was the swirl of ganja-laced smoke as his glorious operation went up in flames.

  He had no idea who had been caught and who had got away. All he knew was he faced death or worse when this disaster was laid out at the clubhouse.